Beijing, May 25: China said Tuesday there was still room for diplomacy in the Iranian nuclear standoff, as the UN Security Council mulls a draft sanctions resolution that Washington has said Beijing has approved.
“The discussions in the Security Council on the Iranian nuclear issue do not mean the end of diplomatic efforts,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week that the United States, China and Russia — three veto-wielding Council members — had reached agreement on the draft, after China had shown particular reluctance.
“The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran concerns us all,” Clinton said in Beijing on Monday at the start of two days of key strategic talks with Chinese officials.
“The draft resolution agreed to by all of our P5+1 partners and circulated at the UN Security Council sends a clear message to the Iranian leadership — live up to your obligations or face growing isolation and consequences.”
The so-called P5+1 groups the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany.
In what was seen by many as a compromise, Iran last week signed an agreement with Turkey and Brazil to ship some of its low enriched uranium to Turkey in return for higher grade fuel for a Tehran research reactor.
However the agreement has been met with scepticism by the US. Iran formally notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its nuclear fuel swap deal on Monday.
“We value and welcome the agreement reached between Brazil, Turkey and Iran on Tehran’s research reactor,” Jiang said.
“We hope that Iran, the IAEA and other parties concerned will reach an agreement on the specific arrangement at an early date and peacefully solve the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation.”
Iran’s nuclear fuel swap deal could be a major confidence-building measure if endorsed by the UN atomic watchdog, paving the way for a negotiated solution to the nuclear standoff with Tehran, the UN chief said Monday.
Ban Ki-moon confirmed Tehran had turned over a letter to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the deal, brokered with Brazil and Turkey last week.
The IAEA and the UN Security Council must now review the plan.
“If accepted and implemented, it could serve as an important confidence-building measure and open the door for a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue,” Ban told reporters after talks with IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.
The UN secretary-general insisted Tehran “should show greater transparency about its nuclear program” and stressed the “importance of Iran’s full cooperation with the IAEA and full compliance with relevant Security Council resolutions.”
Turkey called on world powers Monday to help see through a nuclear fuel swap deal with Iran that it negotiated with Brazil.
“Following this significant step by Iran, we have full confidence that the IAEA, the United States, France and Russia, who form the Vienna Group, will also give a positive response and make the best of this opportunity… so that the arrangement is transformed into action,” a foreign ministry statement said.
The deal should be seen “as a confidence-building move to improve the psychological atmosphere required for the success of the negotiation process between the P5+1 group and Iran in order to reach a diplomatic solution,” the Turkish statement said.
“Turkey is ready… to continue its contributions for a peaceful solution to the issue,” it said.
But a Western diplomat at the UN headquarters in New York said Monday that the uranium fuel agreement Iran struck with Turkey and Brazil has a key technical flaw as it fails to allocate enough time to make the fuel.
“Getting this fuel in one year is impossible. It takes at least one and a half years to have this,” the diplomat told reporters.
The deal “cannot work because it is only one year and it takes more time to get the enriched uranium,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the issue.
The diplomat said if Iran has not received its fuel in one year, it could take its low enriched uranium back from Turkey, where it is to be deposited, and so boost its stockpile.
“The uranium will be in Turkey, and the deal is that after one year they can take it back. So as we know that it will take more than one year to give them the fuel, that means that… after one year, they can take it back and then wait for the fuel to come six months later,” the diplomat said.
He added: “There is something tricky there, but we will see in a year. It is still too early.”
Washington-based nuclear expert David Albright said it could take two years to make the fuel and this was a “real show-stopper” for the deal.
The fuel, said Albright, would be in the form of metal plates, which have to be densely concentrated with the right uranium isotope for the level of enrichment required.
–Agencies